Geography

Andhra Pradesh covers an area of 275,100 km, making it the fourth largest state by area, within India and fifth largest state by population. The state occupies 8.7% of the total geographic area of the country and has the second-longest coastline of 974 km within India. Andhra Pradesh has three major rivers; the Godavari, the Krishna and the Thungabhadra.

Andhra Pradesh is divided into 23 administrative districts, and its' capital city is Hyderabad. The state is bordered by Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Orissa in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the East, Tamil Nadu to the south and Karnataka to the west.

Population

Andhra Pradesh is the fifth most populous state in India with a population of 76.2 million people, constituting for 7.4% of India's population.

Population Demographics

Population Density: 277 inhabitants per sq. km.

Total population: 76.2 million

Male Population: 38.5 million

Female Population: 37.7 million

Urban Population: 27.08%

Sex Ratio: 978 females to 1000 males

Literacy Rate: 60.5%

Male Literacy Rate: 70.3%

Female Literacy Rate: 50.4%

Decadal Growth Rate: 14.6%

Religion: 86% Hindu, 10% Muslim, 3% Christian, 1% other.

Economy

Andhra Pradesh is the fourth largest economy in the country and second largest in the south. Blessed with fertile land, water and supportive agro-climatic conditions, Andhra Pradesh is a flourishing agricultural state. It is one of the leading producers of various cash crops like tobacco, dry chilly, groundnut, turmeric, oilseeds, cotton, sugar, jute etc. The state produces some of the finest varieties of fruits in the country. Presence of a long coast boosted the marine industry in the state. The prosperity of agriculture harnessed the growth of allied industries including agro-processing, cold storage, warehousing, fertilisers and packaging.

Andhra Pradesh has a well-developed traditional industry owing to the availability of wide range of natural resources.

Andhra Pradesh is the second largest storehouse of mineral resources in India. The bountifulness of limestone reserves gives rise to the growth of the cement industry in the state. In addition, the state has performed well in the engineering sector. Its pharmaceutical and bulk drug industry has a significant global presence with many state based companies having established their facilities abroad. The state accounts for the highest pharmaceutical based exports in the country.

Over the years, the services sector in the state has gone through the stage of rapid growth. The contribution of the services sector to the state GDP has been consistently over 50 per cent during 2005-09. The number of software companies in the state increased by 176 during 2006-07 including 40 companies with foreign equity. This growth has been robust with three to four new companies establishing operations every month. Besides this, the state government has proposed the target of IT exports of Rs 69,000 crore from the state and employment for 300,000 people will also be generated by 2009.

Physical Infrastructure

Transport

There are 17 national highways in the state of Andhra Pradesh covering a length of 4537 kilometres, of which 1125 kilometres are 4-lane, 3158 kilometres are 2-lane and 365 kilometres are single lane.

The total road network in Andhra Pradesh is 68,286 kilometres. State Highways constituted 10,231 kilometres, major district roads constituted 32,222 kilometres, with rural roads constituting to 21,186 kilometres. The grand total road length in the State is 188569 kilometres.

Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) is the major public transport corporation owned by the government of Andhra Pradesh connecting all the cities and villages. APSRTC also has the distinction of being in the Guinness book of World records for having the largest fleet of vehicles, and the longest area covered/commuted daily. Apart from these, thousands of private operators run buses connecting major cities and towns of the state. Private vehicles like cars, motorized scooters and bicycles occupy a major share of the local transport in the cities and adjoining villages. The Growth rate of Vehicles in Andhra Pradesh is highest in the country with 16% annual growth.

Railways

There are 748 railway stations within Andhra Pradesh. The network comprises of 3754 kilometres of broad gauge and 508 kilometres of meter gauge. The South Central Railway covers a network of 4752 kilometres in the state.

Aviation

Andhra Pradesh is well linked internally as well as to the rest of the world. All airports in the state have been upgraded to Boeing landing facilities. In 2002-03, it had highest number of landing centres in the country at 508. There are five airports in the state of Andhra Pradesh: Rajiv Gandhi International is based in the state's capital of Hyderabad, and is also the largest in the state. Other domestic airports are Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Rajahmundry and Tirupat.

Ports

Andhra Pradesh has two of India's major ports at Visakhapatnam and Kakinada and three minor ports, Machilipatnam, Nizampatnam and Krishnapatnam. One more private port is being developed at Gangavaram, near Visakhapatnam. The minor ports of Andhra Pradesh, handled 38 Million Tonnes of cargo during 2007, making Andhra Pradesh the 2nd largest cargo handling state in India.

The Andhra Pradesh state has prepared a perspective development plan for the development of ports according to which 173 million tons of cargo will be handled by 2020.

Mass Rapid Transit Service (MRTS)

In March 2006, work started for Hyderabad's metro rail, which will operate from January 2011. The total project cost has been calculated at US$ 2,120.5 billion approximately 35 percent of this will be shared by the governments of both, centre and state. Build, operate and transfer (BOT) - developers, who will invest the remaining 65 percent of the project cost, will be permitted to operate trains and collect revenue through tickets and advertisements for a period of 35 years. Following this period, the entire project would be handed over to the state government.

Power

Andhra Pradesh is the third largest power utility in the country with a total power capacity of 9224 MW (2009). Among all Indian states, Andhra Pradesh has progressed well in reforming its energy sector (privatisation, separation of generation from transmission and distribution etc). Vast natural gas reserves found in Krishna-Godavari basin producing 47 million standard cubic metres per day have opened up immense possibilities for environment-friendly industrial and socio-economic development in Andhra Pradesh.

Andhra Pradesh, as a state has reached significant milestones in power generation and dispersion in the past few years. The state has the highest PLF of 88.9 per cent in the country. The first underground powerhouse in the south, Srisailam complex is the largest hydro power station in the country with an installed capacity of 1,670 MW. The state is one of the leading producers of thermal power in the country and 28,366 MU of energy was available from various sources during 2006-2007. As of 2007-08 per capita consumption was 703 kWh.

Telecommunications

As of March 2009, 4166 telephone exchanges and 5.6 million telephone connections (including cell phones) exist within the State. There are approximately 44,000 route kilometres of fibre-optic cable network across public and private sectors of Andhra Pradesh Telecommunications, Reliance InfoCom has created infrastructure for providing the required bandwidth for basic telecom services and other high-end services by laying a fibre-optic cable backbone of 3000 kilometres throughout the State.

Social Infrastructure

Education

School Education - There are 97475 schools in the state of Andhra Pradesh, of which 62,464 are primary schools, 17,957 are upper primary schools, 16937 are high schools, and 99 are Higher Secondary schools. Young students are required to undertake 5 years of primary education, 2 years of upper primary and 3 years of secondary education. Total student enrolment as of September 2007-08 was 41.6 million students, who were taught by a total of 439 136 teachers, across Andhra Pradesh.

Intermediate Education - In the state of Andhra Pradesh, 33 diverse vocational courses are offered in 4032 junior colleges in the field of agriculture, engineering, home science, paramedical, business commerce and humanities. In total, 1.4 million students were enrolled in conventional and vocational courses for the year 2006-2007.

Higher Education - Andhra Pradesh is served by more than 20 institutes of higher education. All major arts, science, engineering, law, medicine, business and veterinary science are offered, leading to first degrees as well as postgraduate awards. Advanced research is conducted in all major areas.

Andhra Pradesh has 1330 arts, science and commerce colleges; 1000 MBA and MCA colleges; 500 engineering colleges; and 53 medical colleges. The student to teacher ratio is 19:1 in higher education. According to the 2001 census, Andhra Pradesh has an overall literacy rate of 60.5%. While the male literacy rate is at 70.3%, the female literacy rate is only at 50.4%.

The state has recently made strides in setting up several institutes. Andhra Pradesh is home to the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science, (BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus) and IIT Hyderabad. International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H), University of Hyderabad (Hyderabad Central University) and the Indian School of Business (ISB) are gaining national attention for their standards. The National Institute of Fashion Technology and The Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition (NIFT) are also located in the capital, Hyderabad.

Healthcare

Public Sector - In total there are 228 hospitals covering the state of Andhra Pradesh. This includes 19 District Hospitals with 4,900 beds, 57 Area Hospitals with 5,900 beds, 117 Community Health centres with 4,600 beds and 10 specialist hospitals with 824 beds and 25 dispensaries.

Private Sector - Hyderabad has approximately 60 hospitals which classify as authorized centres for providing medical services, and is regarded as the 'Health Capital' of the country. Tertiary hospitals have approximately 3500 beds, and an additional 700 beds are expected to be added in the 2 years.

Industrial Infrastructure

The state of Andhra Pradesh has 272 industrial estates which rank second in the country. The state has four growth centres at Bobbili, Jadcheria, Hindupur and Ongole, and has two Special Economic Zones (SEZ) based at Visakhapatnam and Kakinada, which provide a good environment for exports and investment. The state ranks fourth in the total number of factories and has the third largest worker population within India. The state has given formal approval to 103 Special Economic Zones under the SEZ Act 2005, of which 4 have been approved In-Principle. Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd (APIIC) is developing an Export Promotional Industrial Park, which is to be set up in an area of 204 acres. The project is said to be estimated at a cost of US$ 35.36 million.

Integrated Infrastructure Development Centres,

Andhra Pradesh has invested in a number of Integrated Infrastructure Development Centres, (IIDC) which have been developed to establish industries in rural less developed areas and to provide linkages between agriculture and industry.

They are located at the following locations:

Udumulapur, near Nandyal. Kurnool district

Tada, Nellore District

Keelapattu, Warangul District

Madikonda, Warangul District

Gajularamaram, Ranga Reddy District

Surampally, Vijayawada, Krishna District

Information Technology

Andhra Pradesh is connected to all the global destinations through international gateways in Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi. The state developed a number of IT parks offering incentives to the investors. The state is in the top quartile of Internet subscribers with 219,000 in 2003. Included under Virtual Infrastructure, Internet has also played a pivotal role in creating a far-reaching impact of the states' policies. Internet Infrastructure is composed of the elements like E-seva, Rajiv Internet Village, AP Online, and E-procurement.

E-seva

Presence of e-governance initiative, which offers a wide spectrum of citizen-friendly services

One-stop shop for services of various state and central government departments in an efficient, reliable, transparent and integrated manner

Automates procurement and purchase procedures-spanning from demand aggregation to procurement and fulfilment-of the State Government. Presently, the portal is servicing 29 government departments, 39 public sector undertakings, four universities and 127 urban local bodies.

Over 61,000 tenders with work amounting to US$ 26.3 billion have been handled through the portal.

Life Sciences Infrastructure

Genome Valley is India's first state-of-the-art life sciences cluster in Hyderabad, spanning 600 sq. km. It provides access to World-class infrastructure for both Domestic and International companies. Key players in Andhra Pradesh who have contributed to leveraging the cluster advantage include Albany Molecular Research Inc, Nektar Therapeutics, Chanelle Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, Paraxel etc. Key Indian players include Shantha Biotech, Bharat Biotech, GVK Biosciences and Dr. Reddy's.